Tuesday, March 29, 2011

First and Firstly, I was going to add a bunch of pictures, but my camera is momentarily MIA. Fiddlesticks.

I haven’t been updating my blog because I have been super busy. I grew some facial hair that didn’t get the seal of approval, I made some poor choices, made some good choices, glued more tubulars (again, one of my favorite things to do in the bike shop), fixed bikes, destroyed some bike wheels (link to andreas blog) made some people pretty mad, did some foolish things that turned out to make me super happy, started commuting by bike, pretty much quit training and decided to ride for fun, set my goals high for an upcoming race (I know it doesn’t make sense but I felt a mid-season implosion coming on), worked some inventory days at Union and Cordova, rode my bike, and wrote some ridiculously long run on sentences.

Also I do not have the internet at home, so my slightly updated plan is to write my blog in the comfort of my living room while playing fetch with my awesome Marley. There is a Starbucks on my way to work at Union and I can stop in with my sweet fixie on the patio, pull out my netbook, text on my iPhone, and drink my own coffee from my Stanley Thermos. And I ride past Urban Outfitters on my way in. I’M SOOO HIIIIIIIIIIIIIIP!!!!!!!!

So my neck beard did not get the seal of approval from a certain someone who I made mad. People learn from one another and sometimes grow apart. I’m sorry for whatever and everything.

Fast forward to March, Mustache March to be exact, and I decided I would bring back my necky as an attempt to fit in at work. I was feeling insecure with my lack of facial follicle sprouts. Fast forward to a couple of weeks later and I decided to not shave my neck beard until after Syllamos Revenge. I am still racing the 50 miler. The person who was willing to switch with me received notice he was accepted to Leadville. While I could probably still switch with someone and get into the 125K, I am attacking from the line and not letting up until I see some lower numbers on the time board at the finish. Nutrition and fitness are the best that they have ever been. With a possible recon ride on the schedule for next month, along with a road race in Jackson, TN and some serious miles planned to be logged I feel like I can achieve my goal. I am also in the neighborhood of 90 miles there so far for the year, with hopefully over 60 this coming trip, I am going to have a better knowledge of the trail system.

I know I am going to race single speed. I know I am going to race it on the SIR9. I need a bike that is dependably SS and has no parts to rip off. I have not decided whether or not to race rigid. I have a Reba I could slap on the bike and make it all soff and fast downhill. I just don’t know at this point. I plan to take the SIR9 rigid and see how all that suspension corrected and sexy painted to match steel rides on the ripping fast decents. Also the bike matches the Outdoors kit. I plan to race in my BPC kit, it has done me well so far. But we now have socks from Swiftwick with the beaver logo on the back of the ankle. Those are coming with me for sure. I just wish the beaver was holding a baseball bat. For the fear factor.

I have been working on my general life skills of being an adult and paying my bills, not being a drunkard, not missing work, and being an overall responsible young lad. The cool part is in the long run it seems like being 23 and responsible is way more fun that ending up 30 and being an irresponsible and generally annoying human being. Yes I am stepping on toes. My dad has a great phrase for everything. When someone steps on his foot and apologizes he will laugh and tell them “It’s ok, I’ll walk on the bottoms and you walk on the tops.” What I’m saying is my dad absolutely kicks ass and also, he is so tough bear grills* wouldn’t fuck with him. My dad is coming up again.

In the same vein of being an acceptable human being, I have decided to no longer be a giant douche and make other people all pissy just because my life is momentarily all pissy.

Certain other aspects of my life have been extra difficult lately. I have been fighting with the fact that sometimes other human beings just generally suck. And by sometimes I mean most of the time. So I have decided that I will have to accept this fact and just suck it up. So I have been. It has spilled over and I have been doing less well in other areas, hence the lack of dedication to the bike and other areas of life, such as general tidiness of my apartment. Imagine a bachelor pad. Make it less gross, but just untidy. Boom, Winning, you blinked and in a nanosecond you were inside my apartment. And you saw me typing this blog. Naked. Yeah. You just pictured me naked.

I got to trouble shoot a pretty cool problem at work the other day and it made me happy once I realized the correct way to fix it. I was all excited that I figured out a problem of incompatibility between two expensive and separately designed items. *

Quite the contrary I had a new-clear meltdown over a seemingly trivial thing that same day. Sad panda.

I have been riding mainly single speed, and I have only ridden a geared mountain bike once all year and not even on the trail. I like single speeding it. It is fun, hard, and way gnar. I used it to commute to Cordova the other day with the intention of leaving early and raging some Wolf River Trails on the way home with and exceptionally heavy TimBuk2 bag on my shoulder. Alas I was not able to leave early as the day was as hectic as it was long. On a lighter note I was able to stack big faced washingtons and have enough fun with a set of cruiser fenders to make your brain bleed. On the way home I had my very first commuter battle. I was heading south, a dude on a road bike was heading north. He turned west on the side street. I new I was turning west, but he had a 100 yard lead + 5-10 seconds. I was stuck just up from the street at a light. Light turned green and it was on….I hammered the SS mountain until I thought I was going to die and when I finally caught him (which was way harder than I thought) I rang my bell at him, threw my hand signal, and imploded as I turned south again. It was all on my usual ride home. He didn’t know I didn’t have gears. I knew. My heart rate knew. Spinning the mountain tires with 30psi at WFO* is no easy task. I need more practice like that. So I have been doing that type of thing. 1 minute SS sprints. Ow.

I am not Dickey, I haven’t gotten any new custom bikes to show you. I haven’t sold my car. I haven’t bitched about my bike being heavy while I pound carbo loaded beer and eat Peanut M&M’s. So what I don’t get is why Dickey would drive to a race out of town and waste all of this whole weekend, but somehow claim he didn’t have time to dial in his setup and change tires etc etc etc. Seriously? You have time to race but not time to get ready to race? Unprofessional professional cyclist for sure.

Charlie Sheen might be nearly done going bat shit crazy, but the jokes stemming from him are far from over. I was doing a check with the other store on the phone. I was on hold and my fellow employee comes back on and says “Sorry we didn’t have that” and I told them “boom, losing” in a very quiet and monotone voice. It was pretty awesome. So right now, this whole paragraph is losing. Yeah, losing. If I had known how much it would have sucked before I started writing it I wouldn’t have bothered, but now it’s like a train wreck I can’t look away from.

So I have rambled on about some things that will be going on in the near future, happened in the recent past, and what not. I said my dad would make another appearance, Now enter Johnny – my dad has another saying that always sticks in my head and I am forced to think of from time to time “That shit don’t flush” I mean think that over. What is worse that a nasty sit down session? Plunging it. No one wants to plunge. My dad also used to be a fur trapper. He would trap mink, otter, beaver, skunk, anything in order to sell the hide to a man with a tannery and earn extra income. He said once he skinned a beaver that had been in a kill trap, underwater. This beaver had been underwater for at the least 2-3 hours, at the most 12ish hours (he ran his traps morning and night). When he skinned it he found fleas living on the beaver. The hair/fur of a beaver is so oily it is water tight at the surface of the skin. The beaver’s skin is never actually in contact with the water which is a great way to stay warm. But think of the fleas. Life doesn’t seem too bad now does it?
If you clicked the beaver link, you just found the new, more annoying rick roll. Get on it.

*’s #1 – Who would take deodorant advice from a dude who drinks his own piss. Is degree’s motto “such a cover-up, you can’t tell this dude drinks his own piss!

#2 Yes, yes indeed I was tooting my own horn.

#3 Wide Fucking Open. Best when used with modes of transport with wheels and mechanical advantage such as cars, atvs, bikes, or gas powered scooters. If on foot a more applicable phrase would be “Running so fast you could only see asses and elbows”